


Hypothermia

by InfraVioletUltraRed



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 20:50:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12968157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfraVioletUltraRed/pseuds/InfraVioletUltraRed
Summary: Mostly cute, but also generally medically accurate *peace sign*





	1. Noctis

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly cute, but also generally medically accurate *peace sign*

You were dozing in the back of the Regalia—now that they had the numbers to do it, someone had to stay with the car— arms spread across the seat backs, head thrown back towards the sunshine and nearly asleep, when you heard the chatter of four familiar voices. You cracked your eyes open, a smile coming to your face. You straightened up, brought down your arms, and went to call to them as the quartet approached the car—oh. They didn’t look happy. In fact, the first thing you noticed once you’d come out of your sleepy haze was that Gladio and Prompto were spilling Noctis into his seat next to you.

He was pale, shuffling even with their support, and mumbling.

“Noctis?” You said quietly. No answer. You made yourself speak a little louder and more firmly. “Noctis.” He shook his head, a little dazed, and looked at you. He said nothing. Finally, you asked, “What happened?”

He looked at you blankly, then leaned against you, shivering. You looked up at Gladio. “What happened to him?”

Gladio shrugged. “He’s cold.”

You looked back to Noctis, shivering against your—sun-warmed, you realized—arm and still mumbling. “It looks like it’s a little more serious than that. Like, mild hypothermia serious.” You looked over at Prompto. “I’m surprised it wasn’t you, what with your not wearing sleeves.”

He said nothing for a minute, but finally asked, “So what are we supposed to do for Noct?”

You sighed. “We don’t have any blankets, do we?”

Ignis chimed in. “We have one.”

“Could you bring it to me? Please.” He nodded and moved towards the trunk. Slowly, you scooted across the backseat of the Regalia, bringing Noctis down with you, until his head was in your lap and he was mostly horizontal. “Okay, that’s better. We’re, uh. We can’t go anywhere until he’s better.” You said to everyone else, pushing back Noctis’s hair from his forehead. “Also, Ignis, can I have your jacket?”

He shrugged it off and handed it to you with the blanket. You covered Noctis with both and then nodded. “And now we wait.” You replied.

A few minutes passed, and then Noctis looked up at you and said, weakly. “I’m fine.”

You looked down at him, brushing his hair back again. “No, you aren’t. You were way too cold. You _will be_ fine, but you’re not right now.” He looked upset. You patted the blanket in the approximate region of his hand. “I promise you. We’re all taking the best care of you we can. Isn’t that right?”

Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto were all quick to agree. You patted Noctis’s cheek. “So just relax, rest up, let your body temperature rise, and you’ll be fine.  We’ll be back on the road before you know it.”

He huffed, but did as you said, shutting his eyes.  You leaned your own head back, staring up at the clouds streaking across the sky. The other three were talking amongst themselves, and you could only hear small snippets of their conversation. The sound almost lulled you back to sleep. But no! you couldn’t sleep! You had to take care of Noctis.

Well, not “take care of,” necessarily. Keep an eye on, more like. He still had his eyes shut and was breathing steadily, as well as no longer shivering. He looked a lot better than he had when he’d been brought out to the car, that was for sure.

You reached under the blanket and fished around for his hand, then trailed your fingers up to his wrist. You placed two fingers at his pulse point and waited for the thrum under your fingers. You pressed a little bit, and suddenly his heartbeat jumped under your fingers. Either you’d found the spot perfectly, or something had gotten him excited. Maybe both.

His lashes fluttered as he opened his eyes to look at you. You didn’t speak, or even look at him; you looked straight ahead, focused, mouth moving as you counted the beats and seconds.

Finally, he broke the silence. “What are you doing?”

You slid your gaze over to him, meeting a hard glance. “Checking your pulse.”

“What for?”

“See if you’re better.”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

You decided to take a risk, to quiet him… to surprise him into silence. You trailed your fingers back down and laced them with his, earning you a small gasp. “Yes. You’re fine. Can you sit up?”

Slowly, he did, one hand on his head. “So… I’m okay now?”

You shrugged, mostly to downplay the severity of the situation. “You should be.”

He slid the blanket off his legs then, turning to sit in his seat. “Alright then,” he said to everyone else, “let’s go.”

Gladio, Ignis and Prompto all got themselves into their seats and you set off.

A few minutes into your journey, you realized you hadn’t moved much since Noctis sat up. You looked over at your hand… still in his. Should you say something? It was getting a little uncomfortable to keep your shoulder in the position it was held in. You didn’t want to let go, necessarily, or make a big deal out of it, but… you let out a huffy breath. You had to say something.

“Hey, Noctis?”

“Yeah?”

“I need my hand back.” He looked down at your hands, resting between you, fingers laced.

“…right.” He let go and looked away, out towards the landscape flitting by. You stole a glance at him out of the corner of your eye after a few seconds had passed, surprisingly delighted to find Noctis _maybe_ blushing.

You stretched your shoulder out as best you could in the moderately-cramped backseat, then extended your hand back to Noctis. “Unless you really want to hold onto it?”

He groaned, but took your hand, pulling it into his lap. You sat like that, facing forward and watching the horizon, as Noctis talked to the others. Slowly, so slowly you almost didn’t notice it happening, Noctis had started rubbing small circles on the joint of your thumb. You squeezed his hand in response, holding on tight for a second, and then releasing most of the pressure. While you were holding onto him so tight, he stopped with the small circles, waiting until your hand had relaxed, then he continued.

He addressed the whole car. “Thanks for taking such good care of me back there, you guys.”

“Oh no, dude, that was all her.” Prompto replied.

Noctis turned to you. “Thanks.”

You squeezed his hand again. “It was no trouble at all. Plus,” you looked at Prompto, “you and Gladio did help. I couldn’t have gotten Noctis into the car by myself.”

Noctis snorted and Prompto shrugged. “Fair enough. It was _mostly_ her.”


	2. Gladiolus

As soon as Gladio had pulled himself out of the frigid water, you knew that he was going to be at high risk for drastic heat loss, even though he was naturally so warm. His body, warm as it was, couldn’t heat a whole pond, try though it might. _And_ it was raining, making it so that everyone was a little more waterlogged than was preferable.

So as soon as you were under cover somewhere warmer (the hotel room, specifically), you urged Gladio to take off his clothes.

He let out a weak chuckle, to your dismay. It was probably already setting in. “A little eager, aren’t we, babe? At least let me warm up a little first.”

“That’s what I’m trying to _do,_ ” you insisted. He was your survival guy on this trip, how did he not know how to prevent developing or worsening hypothermia? You sighed. “You’ll warm up faster if you’re in dry clothes,” you said calmly and patiently. You didn’t want to get too upset. You were just worried. If he got worse, he couldn’t fulfill his duty to Noctis. Well, and you’d feel like you’d failed to take care of him and you couldn’t have that. You loved him too much to fail him like that.

So you were going to be pushy, you guessed, but not outright bossy. Just using your knowledge to his benefit. Time to bring out one of many powerful moves to get him to do as you asked. “Gladiolus Amicitia, do you think I’m kidding with you? Do I kid about health and safety situations?”

He sighed, let out a quiet “no,” and complied with your demand, clearly only doing so because you’d brought out the Angry Mom Voice. You looked him over appraisingly and appreciatively as he stripped, but as soon as all his clothes (well, to his underwear) were off, you got down to business. You handed him one of the blankets off the bed and told him to wrap himself in it and then take off his underwear, since they were wet with icy water just like everything else had been. Again, with an eye roll, he did as you said.

As he did so, you looked him over again for any signs of a worsening condition—clumsiness, shallow breaths, shivering, or mumbling—but Gladio seemed… fine.

You took his hand, running your nails over his palm and fingers—he flinched, so he still had feeling in his hand—but when you locked eyes with him, you looked over his face and saw that his lips were blue. He was still very cold. Just not… dangerously so. Fair enough. You turned up the heat in the room, since having air conditioning blowing cold air wasn’t going to do him any favors (not to mention you were a little dampened from getting caught in the rain, and you were chilly in the AC). You gestured for him to sit down and started digging in your bag.

He did as he was told, hoping you wouldn’t get all maternal on him again, and you finally found what you’d been looking for. “A-ha!” you called. “My comb.” You made your way to the chair Gladio was sitting in, and had him move closer to the air vent, to get as much warm air on him as possible. While you waited for that to happen, and for it to take its effect, you began to run the comb through his hair. It wasn’t really the perfect way to pass the time, but you hoped it would be fairly effective.

There weren’t a lot of tangles to work through (you were envious, honestly), so you were doing little but making constant, smooth strokes through his hair. The constant gentle tug on his scalp seemed to be keeping him awake, but not hurting him, so that was good. He sighed a few times, contentedly, so you didn’t stop.

You kicked your foot under the chair for a moment to feel the air in front of it. Pleasantly toasty. You came around the front of the chair to look at Gladio. Other than seeming disappointed that you’d stopped combing him, he was looking good. His lips were finally pink again! You pressed a kiss to them and riffled his hair, giggling.

“Hey, babe, do you think you could go back to combing my hair? That was actually kind of nice.”

“You’re like a show pony,” you said to him, giggling again as you picked up the comb and took his hair in the other hand.

He laughed. “Only if you’ll ride me later.”

“Not tonight.” You said. “You’ll need at least one night to recover from getting so cold. And if you catch a cold, I don’t want to catch it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short!


	3. Ignis

At the moment it happened, you could do little but stare, dumbfounded. Just a little bit of the ice magic ricocheted off the ground and bounced up, hitting Ignis’s back.

Immediately, he yelped, and began shivering. And that was when you sprang into action.

There was, well, there was no good way to drag someone so tall away from the fray, but you did your best to get him out of the way as the others continued fighting. At least it looked like the fight was nearly over.  

You got him seated as he continued to shiver. You weren’t really sure what you could do for him while everyone else was busy. You wanted to put your hand on his, or rub his arm, but that would only make it worse, moving warm blood from his core to his extremities. So you didn’t.

You looked at his pink and runny nose, and you couldn’t stop yourself from running your thumb over his cheek affectionately while you dug in your pocket for a tissue. It was odd, to have the roles reversed like this. Usually it was _him_ taking care of _you_. Not that you minded. It made you feel needed.

Ah, there was the tissue. Well, you had a couple. But you’d spit out gum into one of them, and this was the first one you ran into other than that one. You handed it to Ignis, and he reached out for it with a shaking hand. You put the tissue into his hand, to make it easier for him, but he still didn’t seem to really be coordinated enough to get it to his face. You cursed quietly, taking the tissue back. Noctis wasn’t fucking around with his magic, that was for sure. You gave Ignis’s philtrum a gentle, cursory wipe, just to keep the snot from freezing to his face, and then turned to call out to the others.

“You guys, Ignis is doing really poorly.”

The trio came over to you two, all looking down at Ignis, who was trying to put on a brave face.

Gladio was the first to speak. “What happened?”

Noctis looked at his shoes. “I was careless.”

You looked up at Noctis. “Noct, it happens. Don’t worry about it. We just need to get Ignis warmed up, and then everything will be just fine.” You turned to Gladio. “Can you, uh… I can’t pick him up.”

“What, too heavy for you?”

“It’s partially a height thing.” You answered. Gladio chuckled and took Ignis’s hand, dragging it over his shoulder and lifting him up. “Yeah, sure. Can you walk, Iggy?”

“I can certainly try,” he slurred in reply. And “try” was a good word for what he did—the effort was apparent, but he just… wasn’t making very much headway. Were it not for Gladio holding him up, Ignis would have face-planted five steps ago.  You trailed behind them to the car, and Prompto and Noctis followed you.

You sat in the backseat like you always did, but instead of driving, Ignis was to your left this time, tucked under your arm somewhat awkwardly so you could hold him closer to you. He seemed to like that, soaking up your body heat and enjoying your quiet humming between checking on him—asking him easy-to-answer questions like “are you doing okay?” and “you still awake?”

You had taken off his glasses so he could press the side of his face further against your neck and shoulder, and you held them in your hand as you ran your thumb over his cheek and swooped up to his forehead, moving a few strands of hair in the process. “Hey, Iggy, sweetheart?”

His eyes fluttered, then opened. They didn’t focus. You tried to avoid making a face while he was looking at you, in case he could parse your expression. “Yes?”

“We’re almost there. I was just keeping you focused.” You kept your voice soft and low, reminding yourself to stay this calm moving forward, because you knew that once you could take more action, you didn’t want to… overreact.

“Mmnn,” he sighed. “Thank you.”

You moved your hand from his arm to his back to rub a lazy circle on it in reassurance. “It’s my pleasure, sweetheart.”

When you had all gotten settled, Ignis sitting near the (small, for now) fire, with a blanket draped on him, you got to boiling some water, and digging through your bag.

Noctis seemed to be looking on curiously, but Prompto was the one to actually approach you and ask questions. “Whatcha looking for?”

“Tea bags,” you replied.

“Do we even have those?” he asked.

You laughed. “I do.” You pulled them out of your bag with a little chirpy sigh of celebration. You dropped one bag into a cup of hot water and pulled the string to plunk it in and out of the water. “Now, I hope we don’t need to do this again soon, but these tea bags are perfect for warming up people with hypothermia,” you noted aloud, “because tea is warm. And this tea is obviously non-alcoholic—which makes hypothermia worse—and it’s non-caffeinated.” Prompto nodded. You pushed past him gently to get to Ignis, who you handed the cup of tea.

“Thank you, love.” He said, smiling weakly.

“It’s no problem. Drink up, but _slowly._ ” His smile seemed to get a little stronger and he did as you told him.

When the cup was empty, he moved to stand up, saying he needed to cook dinner. You gestured for him to sit back down and told him you’d cover it. He raised his eyebrows, but didn’t protest.

When you served dinner, he leaned over to Noctis and said in a voice he thought you couldn’t hear, “I wouldn’t mind if you did this again some time. It was nice to be taken care of for a change.”

You smiled around your fork. “You only have to ask, sweetheart.” You rose from your seat and walked over to him, bending down to kiss his cheek. “It’d save me the panic if you did, instead of creating a medical emergency.”


	4. Prompto

Now, granted, you weren’t a meteorologist, but you weren’t stupid. You should have known better about the weather. The sky was already grey when you’d gotten into the fight, only darkening as the melee continued, until it was over and the coming storm was no longer coming, it had come, hovering over the party.

You should have known better about a lot of things. Like not lettings escalate the way they did. But what could you say, really? You’d been swept up in emotion and…

How it happened was, you were all alive, so you’d turned to the person physically closest to you—turned out it was Prompto—and given him a hug, letting out a giddy shriek because you’d all made it, and then he’d stroked your hair, and like, you kind of knew he had feelings for you like you did for him, so you might have turned your head a little to kiss his cheek, glad you two especially had both made it. But you weren’t really thinking straight; you all could have _died_.

And those emotions and your impulsive actions might have kept the ball rolling, so that you tightened your hold on his neck and just bit the bullet and full-on kissed him as the others moved on towards the car.

So yes, you should have known better and kept your impulses under control, but it’s not like you knew that as soon as you relaxed into kissing Prompto, the skies would open up, leaving both of you soaked.

You sighed heavily as you pulled away. You wish it could have been an airy sigh, as you reveled in what it had been like to finally kiss the lips you’d dreamed of having pressed against your own, as you savored the slight tastes of salt and bubblegum, somehow? and—less of a surprise—gunpowder, but it wasn’t a dreamy sigh promising further pleasure. It was exasperated and hard and almost annoyed. Prompto frowned as the sound left your mouth, so you smiled at him and shook your head, trying to convey “no, not you,” as you took his hand, and turned around, looking through the pounding rain for the Regalia.

A flash of lightning burst around you, and the boom of thunder followed almost immediately. The storm really was right on top of you. You yelped and quickened your pace through the driving downpour, still holding onto Prompto’s hand, though your hands were now soaked.

You smiled as you heard the sound of a car motor over the rumbling and splattering of the storm, knowing you were getting close to rejoining your friends. You let out another noise from deep inside you, a noise of relief, as you yanked open the car door, and—oh.

The seating arrangement in the car was all sorts of different. Noctis was driving, and Ignis was up front with him, Gladio sat where Noctis usually did, and that left the two seats to his right for you and Prompto. Gladio tapped the seat next to him with a smirk.

“We figured we’d let the two lovebirds sit together.” You immediately turned an uncomfortably warming shade of red, and slid into the middle seat silently, Prompto following you.

You were silent the entire time as Noctis drove, mostly staring dumbly forward through the windshield at the rain still coming down in droves, or looking at your knees like they had the answers to all life’s questions, if only you could decipher their code. Prompto did mostly the same, staring out his window or at his own legs, but he kept a loose grip on your hand, running his thumb from your knuckle to the first bend in your index finger, and then back to your knuckle, every so often. It was nice, but you didn’t smile or say anything. You didn’t have anything _to_ say.

You remained silent, watching, as Noctis tapped to turn on the air conditioning. As it hissed into operation, you curled yourself a little tighter, hoping to conserve heat before the cool air hit you.

You had no such luck. Slowly, you had felt all the heat leave your body, your wet clothes helping sap any warmth. The only warmth you had was in the creases of your clothing where you’d been bent, and in your hand that was still wrapped around Prompto’s.

Finally, you spoke. “Noct, can you turn the air down? I’m getting cold.”

He laughed drily. “It’s hot in here if you aren’t wet.” Ignis and Gladio nodded in agreement. You weren’t sure if they really agreed or were just playing along, enjoying making fun of you like this. “Huddle for warmth with Prompto or something.”

So that was what you did. You took your hand from his, pulling your arms in towards your chest, and you heaved your entire body away from Gladio, swinging your legs so that your right leg was draped over Prompto’s knee and your torso was pressed up against him. You moved to wrap your arms around Prompto’s left arm much like a koala hugs a tree branch, but before you could, he had wrapped it around you to pull you closer, until your chest was crushed up against his side.

He was just as cold as you were—that is, you didn’t really feel any warmer at first—but with the two of you trying to heat up your own bodies, while they were pressed together like that, so the heat bounced between you… well, you sure _felt_ a lot warmer. And redder. You had apparently unconsciously pressed your forehead against Prompto’s shoulder, so you pulled yourself away to look up at him. He was blushing about as much as you felt like you probably were, but he smiled at you.

“Any better?”

“I mean, I feel better, but I don’t know how much difference it’s really making.”

“Aw. I’ll just have to try harder.”

You giggled, but added, “This is good enough. I can manage my own body temperature just fine.” You were quiet for a moment, your forehead pressed against his shoulder again. Then you mumbled out, “I’m sorry, by the way.”

“What for?”

“Keeping you out of here so you got all wet.” Noctis hit a bump in the road, and you all bounced, groaning a little.

Prompto laughed. “You do _not_ have to apologize.”

Sometime after that, you dozed off, finally warming up a little and just genuinely comfortable pressed up against Prompto with his arm around you. As a result, you missed the conversation that had gone on over your head as Noctis apologized for freezing the two of you by keeping the air on, but he’d been trying to give Prompto a shove to get him to make a move on you—of course, you’d somewhat solved his problem by being so hyped up in your post-battle excitement that you’d made the first move, but he didn’t want it to stop there, the both of you embarrassed forever onward. That said, he hadn’t expected the rain to come down so hard, so continuing the plan by use of the air conditioning had been kind of mean.

But Prompto wasn’t too upset. He looked down at you asleep against him and smiled, then looked up at Noctis. “I think I can forgive you.”

It was still raining when you’d arrived at your destination, albeit much less hard than it had been (you had been driving away from the storm, after all). Still, when you moved yourself around so that Prompto could get out of the car, you felt rushes of cold air where your bodies had been pressed together and your clothes were still damp. You scampered out of the car behind him, and all five of you made your way into the hotel as fast as you could, trying not to get wet all over again.

Gladio, Ignis, and Noctis left it up to you two to decide who got to shower first, and Prompto immediately gestured towards the bathroom, looking as if he would shove you into it if you refused. So off you went to take a nice, hot shower.

You were still drying your hair, though now you were comfy in warm and dry clothes, when Prompto came back from his shower. You’d half-expected him to already be dressed and in the process of drying his hair when he sat down next to you, but he was still in his towel, hair dripping.

You turned from your seat, where you’d been staring out the window, to look at him. “Did you need something? I have extra conditioner if you—” he put his index finger gently on your lips, silencing you.

“Nope. I just wanted to see what you were up to.”

“Oh! I’m just watching the raindrops on the window. They’re racing.”

He laughed and moved closer to you. “Which ones are we watching now?”

You pointed at a trio of droplets in the windowpane’s top corner, which you’d named Gladio, Ignis, and Noctis. You turned to him with a grin on your face, telling him which one you were cheering for.

“Oh yeah?” He said, turning away and squinting at the droplets. “Well, my gil is on the Ignis drop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeessss, it *is* the longest one. *shrug* I just love Prompto.


End file.
